Piano Concerto in G major (Ravel)

Maurice Ravel's Piano Concerto in G major was composed between 1929 and 1931. The piano concerto is in three movements, with a total playing time of a little over 20 minutes. Ravel said that in this piece he was not aiming to be profound but to entertain, in the manner of Mozart and Saint-Saëns. Among its other influences are jazz and Basque folk music.

The first performance was given in Paris in 1932 by the pianist Marguerite Long, with the Orchestre Lamoureux conducted by the composer. Within months the work was heard in the major cities of Europe and in the US. It has been recorded many times by pianists, orchestras and conductors from all over the world.

Background and first performance

The concerto was Ravel's penultimate composition. He had contemplated a piano concerto, based on Basque themes, in 1906;Orenstein (1991), p. 72 he returned to the idea in 1913, but abandoned work on the piece in 1914.Orledge, p. 34 Fifteen years elapsed before he turned once more to the idea of writing a concerto. He began sketching it in 1929 but throughout his career he had been a slow, painstaking worker,Sackville-West and Shawe-Taylor, p. 607 and it was nearly three years before the concerto was finished. He was obliged to put it to one side while he worked to a deadline to write another concerto, the D major, for the left hand, commissioned by Paul Wittgenstein.Nichols, p. 313

The biographer Arbie Orenstein writes that while touring the US in 1928, Ravel had been "impressed by its jazz, Negro spirituals and the excellence of its orchestras".Orenstein (2003), p. 10 Jazz had been popular in Paris since the start of the decade: Ravel had first heard, and enjoyed, it in 1921, and its influence is heard in the violin sonata, completed in 1927, and in the D major piano concerto.Orenstein (1991), pp. 198–199 and 202 The Basque theme mooted in 1906 and 1913 was not wholly abandoned. His colleague Gustave Samazeuilh believed that Ravel drew on his earlier ideas for the outer movements of the G major concerto, and Orenstein notes a Basque influence in the opening theme of the work.Nichols, p. 328

In an interview with the music critic Pierre Leroi, published in October 1931, Ravel said:

He had intended to be the soloist in the first public performance of the new work, but fatigue, poor health and pressure of work led him to offer the premiere to Marguerite Long, to whom he dedicated the concerto. Long, who was known for her performances of the works of Fauré and Debussy had earlier asked Ravel for a new work. She received the completed score on 11 November 1931, and played the concerto at the Salle Pleyel on 14 January 1932, with Ravel conducting the Orchestre Lamoureux.

A few days after the premiere, Ravel and Long began a European tour with the concerto, playing in sixteen cities, starting in Antwerp and including Brussels, Vienna, Bucharest, Prague, London, Warsaw, Berlin, Amsterdam and Budapest.Nichols, p. 322 The first North American performances were given on 22 April 1932, in Boston and Philadelphia.

Instrumentation Ravel told Leroi, "In order not to needlessly weigh down the orchestral texture, I called for a reduced orchestra: the usual strings are joined only by one flute, piccolo, oboe, cor anglais, two bassoons, two horns, one trumpet and one trombone".Quoted in Orenstein (2003), pp. 485–486 Orenstein points out that Ravel, or Leroi, forgot to mention two clarinets and the extensive range of percussion instruments.Orenstein (2003), p. 486

The full tally of instruments, apart from the piano, comprises piccolo, flute, oboe, cor anglais, E clarinet, clarinet in B and A, 2 bassoons, 2 horns in F, trumpet in C, trombone, percussion (timpani, triangle, snare drum, cymbals, bass drum, tamtam, wood block, and whip), harp, 16 violins, 6 violas, 6 cellos, and 4 double basses.

Structure

The concerto typically plays for about 22 minutes.

I. Allegramente The first movement, in G major, is in time. It opens with a single sharp whip-crack, followed by an exposition that contains five distinct themes. Orenstein says of them that the first suggests a Basque folk melody, the second the influence of Spain, and the other three derive from the idiom of jazz.Orenstein (1991), p. 204

The development section – "a lively romp" – is followed by a cadenza-like passage leading to the recapitulation. Where a cadenza might be expected in such a concerto movement, Ravel writes three: first for harp, then for the woodwind, and finally for the piano; the last of these draws on the fifth theme of the exposition. An extended coda concludes the movement, bringing back some of the material from the development section and finishes with a series of descending major and minor triads.

II. Adagio assai The slow movement, in E major, is in time. In contrast with the preceding movement, it is a tranquil subject of Mozartian serenity written in ternary form. Ravel said of it, "That flowing phrase! How I worked over it bar by bar! It nearly killed me!"Quoted in Russ, p. 133 The first theme is presented by the piano, unaccompanied. Ravel said he took as his model the theme from the Larghetto of Mozart's Clarinet Quintet, but in an analysis of the work published in 2000, Michael Russ comments that whereas the Mozart melody unfolds across 20 bars, Ravel builds an even longer – 34-bar – melody, without repeating a single bar.Russ, p. 133 The musicologist Michel Fleury calls the opening an "extended monologue in the style of a stately Sarabande", and remarks that it derives "its curiously hypnotic character" from the rhythmic discrepancy between the time signature of the melody in the right hand and the signature of the accompaniment.Fleury, Michel. Notes to Ars CD ARS38178 (2015) (The time signature in the score, however, is nowhere , but instead is in all staves throughout, reinforced by consistent beaming of quavers in pairs.)

After thirty bars – about three minutes in a typical performance – the solo flute enters with a C and oboe, clarinet and flute carry the melody into the second theme. There follows a more dissonant episode, imbued with what Fleury calls a slight sense of trepidation; the orchestra plays slowly ascending chord progressions while the piano part consists of "iridescent harmonies". The cor anglais [English horn] reintroduces the opening theme beneath the piano's "delicate filigree in the high register".

III. Presto The finale, in G major, is in time. At just under four minutes in a typical performance it is much the shortest of the three. Four brisk chords at the beginning launch what Fleury describes as "an unstoppable onslaught, spurred on by the shrieks of the clarinet and the piccolo, the donkey brays of the trombone and occasional fanfare flourishes in the brass". Orenstein finds the opening recalls the carnival atmosphere of Stravinsky's Petrushka or Satie's Parade.

The solo part begins with a series of demisemiquavers marked to be played piano – a technically demanding combination."Building a Library", BBC Radio 3, 14 February 2015. Event occurs at 34m 10s. The music progresses through several modes before coming to its conclusion with the same four chords with which the movement begins. Reviewing the premiere of the work, Henry Prunières wrote, "The spirit of jazz indeed animates this last movement ... but with extreme discretion".Prunières, Henry in La Revue musicale, February 1932, quoted in Rogers, M. Robert. "Jazz Influence on French Music", The Musical Quarterly January 1935, p. 68 Recordings The first recording of the concerto, made in 1932, featured Marguerite Long as soloist with an ad hoc orchestra of the best players in Paris, conducted, according to the label, by the composer.Columbia advertisement,The Gramophone, Volume 10, p. xv In fact Ravel supervised the recording sessions, while a more proficient conductor, Pedro de Freitas Branco, took the baton.Orenstein (2003), p. 536

The many later recordings include: SoloistOrchestraConductorYear Leonard Bernstein Philharmonia Leonard Bernstein 1948 Monique Haas NDR Sinfonieorchester Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt 1948 Nicole Henriot Paris Conservatoire Charles Munch 1949 Jacqueline Blancard Orchestre de la Suisse Romande Ernest Ansermet 1953 Jean Doyen Orchestre des Concerts Lamoureux Jean Fournet 1955 Vlado Perlemuter Concerts Colonne Jascha Horenstein 1955 Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli Philharmonia Ettore Gracis 1957 Leonard Bernstein Columbia Symphony Leonard Bernstein 1958 Jean Casadesus Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire Pierre Dervaux 1958 Philippe Entremont Philadelphia Eugene Ormandy 1960 Samson François Paris Conservatoire André Cluytens 1961 Julius Katchen London Symphony István Kertész 1965 Monique Haas Orchestre national de France Paul Paray 1965 Martha Argerich Berlin Philharmonic Claudio Abbado 1967 Werner Haas Orchestre national de l'Opéra de Monte-Carlo Alceo Galliera 1969 Alicia de Larrocha London Philharmonic Lawrence Foster 1973 Aldo Ciccolini Orchestre de Paris Jean Martinon 1974 Yvonne Lefébure Orchestre national de l'ORTF Paul Paray 1977 Pascal Rogé Montreal Symphony Charles Dutoit 1982Boris KrajnýPrague Symphony OrchestraJiří Bělohlávek1984 Martha Argerich London Symphony Claudio Abbado 1984 Jean-Philippe Collard Orchestre national de France Lorin Maazel 1986 Louis Lortie London Symphony Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos 1989 Cécile Ousset City of Birmingham Symphony Simon Rattle 1991 Alicia de Larrocha St Louis Symphony Leonard Slatkin 1991 Hélène Grimaud Royal Philharmonic Jesús López Cobos 1992 Jean-Yves Thibaudet Montreal Symphony Charles Dutoit 1995 Krystian Zimerman Cleveland Orchestra Pierre Boulez 1995 Pascal Rogé Vienna Radio Symphony Bertrand de Billy 2004 Zoltán Kocsis Budapest Festival Iván Fischer 2006 Francesco Tristano Schlime Russian National Mikhail Pletnev 2006 Yundi Li Berlin Philharmonic Seiji Ozawa 2007 Pierre-Laurent Aimard Cleveland Pierre Boulez 2010 Martha Argerich Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana Jacek Kaspszyk 2012Benjamin GrosvenorRoyal Liverpool PhilharmonicJames Judd2012 Yuja Wang Zurich Tonnhalle Lionel Bringuier 2015 Gabriella Montero Orchestra of the Americas Carlos Miguel Prieto 2019 Francesco Piemontesi Suisse Romande Jonathan Nott 2022

Source: WorldCat."Ravel G major Piano Concerto", WorldCat. Retrieved 19 June 2020

Legacy Ravel's Piano Concerto had presumably influenced the Japanese composer Akira Ifukube and his Godzilla's Theme, a music theme to represent the eponymous movie monster.

Notes, references and sources Notes

References

Sources

Piano Concerto in G major (Ravel)

Bron en licentie